Emirates has carefully cultivated its image as a glamorous carrier through fancy bars and showers onboard, spacious first class suites, and according to several flight attendants, the weight police.
Emirates’ “Weight Police” Inspires Fear In Flight Attendants
In addition to education, language proficiency, and general health, the search for flight attendants at Emirates includes unspoken weight standards that seek to maintain the carrier’s mystique.
Once accepted, female cabin crew members are instructed on how long their hair can be, how to style their hair, what kind of makeup and nail polish is allowed, and according to many ex-flight attendants, strict controls over their weight.
Officially called the Appearance Management Program, the “weight police” can knock at the door after directly identifying a flight attendant deemed overweight or based upon the feedback of colleagues.
A former human resources officer told Insider, “A culture of telling on each other to management is prevalent.” Another trigger for scrutiny include a flight attendant needing to go up in size in less than six months.
Once identified, flight attendants are given exercise plans and placed on a diet. They must then meet with HR officers to chart their progress. Flight attendants who do not make adjustments continue to face close scrutiny and may even be slapped with pay cuts or grounded.
The former HR officer estimated that of the 25,000 flight attendants at Emirates (at the time), no more than 150 were on the program. Emirates has cut back significantly on flight attendants during the pandemic, reporting only 14,372 in its latest annual report.
Former Emirates flight attendant Karla Bayson, who left the airline last year, told Insider, how staff approach a flight attendant under observation:
“Hey, babe. You need to slow it down.”
Meanwhile, Emirates refused to address specifics, but defended its policy:
“We do not comment on internal policies or procedures or specific, confidential cases of existing or past employees,”
“As a global airline, we treat the wellbeing of our employees with the highest priority, and we believe being fit and healthy, both physically and mentally, is a critical aspect in them carrying out their duties safely and effectively. It may not always be apparent to our customers, but the responsibilities of our cabin crew are vast, and their ability to influence and achieve safe outcomes when needed, requires extensive training and a minimum standard of physical fitness.”
Whether Emirates considers physical fitness synonymous with being trim…well, you can read between the lines.
CONCLUSION
While U.S. carriers did away with flight attendant weight standards long ago, Emirates appears to continue to maintain weight standards under the guise of physical fitness. For flight attendants, scrutiny comes not only over service and dress code, but over weight.
image: Emirates
OK, you (or I) may not agree with that but this this THEIR culture. The US should stop importing ITS cultural and ethical norms worldwide. Different strokes for different folks.
I agree with you, but there’s a fine line in upholding their cultural differences and being body-shamed.
What a knob head. I suppose you are svelt with no fat belly and so is your wife or girlfriend. To say you are a disgrace is mild. It’s the people like you that lack education or understanding of human rights.
Surely you should go and hide behind the biggest rock in your area.
Hey I forgot you are American and still have segregation in your country when South Africa has moved on. You also have bible basher and gay bashers in the US of A. Not to mention the biggest opiod community(no offence). Oh add obesity is about 65% of the population.
Clearly social media has given you reign.
Given all the other strict (and to much of the western world, arcane) rules and regulations in Dubai, this seems a bit tame in comparison.
For what it’s worth I’ve never seen a fat FA in a US airline for what I can remember; maybe I just don’t fly enough.
You don’t fly enough. I have seen large FAs that barely fit in the aisle on UA and AA. It must be a safety concern.
Somehow I doubt this is peculiar to Emirates, I’ll bet Qatar, Etihad and Singapore are in on it too – Singapore probably led the way since they’ve been around the longest.
I once heard from a friend that lives in Singapore. Become SQ flight attendants is the alternative to become Miss Singapore. Most of them are stunning. Similar to Emirates. When I see them arriving at any airport you and see they are extremely well dressed, their hair is impeccable, they look very professional. Not much to say about US airlines FAs other than they love to make passenger’s lives miserable.
I disagree. They are not stunning.
EVA and China Airlines have better looking flight attendants possibly because Taiwan is not as rich as Singapore. Flight attendants tend to be slightly poor and looking for a way to escape that.
Lol it USED to be this way back in the day. My father used to fly in and out of LGA a lot for biz in the 60s and 70s, and for a while the morning flights and late afternoon flights were known as the “Businessman’s special” with only young and pretty female stewardesses. Now in the U.S., it all old warhorse females and fancy-pants male FAs.
LoL! LoL! U r so right about that last part! LoL!
Tend to agree with James above. This is just as prevalent (perhaps in different forms of enforcement) with many Asian carriers yet not spoken about as much.
While the EK policy may be the extreme, the U.S. carriers (especially) have perhaps gone to the other extreme. No one seems to care. Not as much about weight (as I have encountered a few female FA’s on EK that were not exactly in the best of shape as well) but rather complete disregard in holding to any standards for uniform and appearance. Just wear a horribly designed uniform (which is on the executive team for that) and anything else basically goes. The lack of any sense of style or pride is very evident. Jet Blue FA’s might be considered the most polished in appearance overall, but still far removed from anywhere else.
Walk through any European or Asian airport, look at the crews, the U.S. flight attendants should be ashamed and embarrassed. You say it doesn’t matter? I say it does. How they appear is a direct influence on how they perceive themselves and do their jobs.
Praise the lord
As a strongly religious person i will have you know women are not in the image of god. They are not even humans, being made from a rib. They need strong guidance, discipline and an occasional slap on the bottom. Why are these women flying around and not in the kitchen and giving their husbands babies every year. They have strayed from the path of god. We live in truly evil times.
Praise the lord
You are joking right?
Praise the lord
Dear lady, of course i am joking. A baby every year will be exhausting. I think once in a while you can take a break for a year. You deserve it.
Praise the lord
You’re really a credit to your kind, debit.
Aloha snack bar
Really, thank GOD for wisdom!
You dear sir are from the ages. You are not religious by any means if you say a woman is not made of the rib. It only Gods place to judge not mine, not yours and if these women are not where God wants them that is between them and God.
You are more stupid than a rock.
Grow a brain.
I worked for an Asian airline decades ago, and they were not all “dolls”.
They are professionals.
Who let the dogs out?
As should be the case everywhere.
If airlines can ask a passenger to buy 2 seats or pay extra for fuel cost so to should the flight attended be paying extra when overweight.
Either we all get to eat as much as we want or no one should.
The airplane doesn’t know if the extra 100lb belongs to me or to any of the dictators on board
If you had contacted Emirates,they would have provided the mental health research supporting the premise constant harping about body image issues increases well being,psychological stability and reduced stress conditions.
When I first was hired as a FA for a U.S. carrier, there were weight standards. I’ve always struggled with my weight and have yo-yo’d up and down quite a bit through my 30+ year career. Honestly, I wish the airline had continue to require regular weigh-ins. It kept me from gaining too much. Back then, if I knew I was getting to the top of my allowed weight, I could lose a few pounds. These days, nobody cares and it’s easier for me to order a larger uniform while I plan to lose weight “someday soon”. It was a whole lot easier to face losing 3 lbs than it is to realize the problem has ballooned to 30 or more extra lbs. I was hired in the late 1980’s and the weight charts were pretty lenient so it wasn’t like the women had to keep an unhealthily low weight; some even had the opposite problem of being underweight and had to work to gain weight. The men, however, did have quite a restrictive chart and had to be very slight. I didn’t enjoy probationary weigh-ins, but they did help me with self-discipline and I looked better in my uniform.
The US has been plagued with obesity for a long time, likely due to people driving everywhere, overeating the wrong stuff, and not exercising. That includes FAs. BTW, the plus-size modeling craze is absurd.
Whatever can be done to reduce people’s weight is spot on. Beyond the medical issue, FAs are customer-facing and need to look attractive and slim. They should also have a bit of muscle, since there can be physical demands.
I fully support the weight police, but let’s have strength assessment too. Being toned is both sexy and healthy.
Not sure what the problem is here. Being overweight is unhealthy. This promotes health. It’s also a bit rich to sit in America judging other people’s culture from afar.
If only we could do this in the U.S. All kinds of professions, from ramp workers to NBA players, require certain levels of fitness. Many others require certain standards of appearance. Why should flight attendants be exempt?
Fatties block the aisle in case of emergencies. So do the oldies. So retire the old, fat ones. At the very least, American air lines should have a swim test like Lufthansa. I want FAs who can swim in case of a water landing. I suppose some of the ones I’ve seen could be used as flotation devices….
cold as ice
The 1950s just phoned.
They want their attitude back!
And, hey, I am just as much in the image of G_d as any d00d is!
Sounds good…US carriers should look into this.
My sister was a BA stewardess in the 70s. She passed all the quite rigorous tests except for weight when she applied. She was told to lose 2lbs and come back. And she wasn’t fat. She did and flew for about 10 years.
America…the country that enslaved an entire race of people for 400 yrs, disenfranchised them for another 100+ years and beyond, and literally the country that committed genocide against the native Indians, and stole their land at the same time. Yet, want to critique an airline about having weight restrictions for flight attendants? Okay, that makes sense.
It was more like 150-200 years that slavery was in the US. Not nearly as long as Africa where it started, or the middle east where it exists today (there’s no shortage of stories of workers in middle eastern countries who have their passports taken by employers and are never given days off, despite there being a law) That being said, this guy is just a simp
Also the Native American genocide (which occurred in Canada as well) was a drop in the bucket compared to the Armenian genocide, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and of course the Nazi Holocaust
America is 244 years old as of today. So your ” 400 years of slavery” makes the math a little fuzzy, considering the country isn’t even 400 years old.
Weight expectations are Ok as long as they’re within a realistic and reasonable range. No matter what ultra-PC people sat, weight IS an indicator of fitness. And you can’t have an unfit F/A managing your emergency evacuation and other critical events.
What is NOT Ok is telling on your colleagues. No matter what the culture, this act is an inherently malicious one intended to bring another person down.
What a lot of bollocks. Its clear to see that most of the comments on this subject are so bias and male dominated so they can ogle the FA. A chubby FA has been trained just like a slim or anorexic one. Aircraft doors are very heavy and opening and shutting them are not an easy feat. So next time bear that on mind when an 100lbs FA is in your sight. Start thinking will she be able to open that door in an emergency or will I have to use my so called gentleman act and help or do we all die.
Also will you refused a fit fat healthy rugby or football player a seat by the door? Cause as a FA he will be my first choice of helper in an emergency situations.
As for Ek and all the UAE and Asian Airlines their employment age for FA starts from 21 years and no older than 35 years. That’s says a lot of the companies policy. And there are no UAE female workers. They are all imported from poor Eastern countries and value their jobs that feeds their families miles from where they are working. To some it will be shameful to loose that job. So grassing on each other becomes like second nature
I know a few FA from Western Europe who has not even finish their training with EK or Qatar and had sneak back on a flight home leaving all belongings in the UAE just to get away and come home. Some left good positions in Europe and has regretted it.
These airlines are blatantly breaking the human rights of women FA or not and some of us are letting them get away with it. Imagine no foreigners working for them. They will not be flying due lack of staff coz most of Arabic women in their countries are fat and hide behind the hijab or are mot allowed to work. So they can only flaunt the expats hired.
So what does it matter if some are chubby. She would’ve passed their exams during their 6 weeks training and earn their wings just like her slim colleagues and probably with better grades and points.
It’s about time the world do something to stop these airlines body shaming people and start looking at the potential of the individuals and protect staff mental wellbeing. Coz it must be tiring and tressful for the FA to be thinking about their weight all the time. No wonder their FA sucides rates are over the roof compares to other parts of the world.
Qatar once told a colleague that at 28yrs and just got married she’s no longer an asset to the company coz she will be getting pregnant next. Really and that’s accepted???
These kind of articles only fuel this inhumane trend. Just reading these comments makes me sick. And shows how ignorance have been given a helping hand by social media.
Yes I’m still an FA. I started my career 20yrs ago at 58kg. During the years I’ve put on weight and I’m now at 72kg. I wasn’t sack or told to loose weight, just given a bigger size uniform and told by my manager that I look more healthy.
Thank god for European Airlines and their human rights attitude and body shaming not their priority instead making safety on board their priorities. After all the FAs jobs on board is primarily for your safety and not for your entertainment as EK or Qatar seems to believe.
I’m sure if the wife, girlfriend or sister was in that position the comments will have been very different.
Well done Emirates. Very good to keep health of staff as top priority. Not sure why people in the US support obesity. Yes, do not fat shame, but also, an FA cannot be an obese person given the hardwork required. Also it is customer facing. The west should keep their ideology in the west.
Let’s remember that the primary purpose of a flight attendant is the role of (extremely well) trained safety officer in case of emergency.
Don’t be fooled, those smiles and that focus on polite service vanishes in an instant in an emergency.
In an emergency, all flight attendants on board will immediately turn into ferocious, commanding sergeants- no smiles, no politeness. In an instant, they become medics, police officers, firefighters, all, in one.
There is absolute athletic requirement to rapid evacuation (90 seconds is the average target), they must survive smoke, carry injured passengers, the list goes on.
So yes, body weight and fitness matter- critically.
When you pretend they don’t because you’re trying to avoid a PR disaster, you sacrifice the safety, even the lives, of the passengers for the sake of corporate public image.
No thanks. Keep my safety officers in optimum health please.
Hilarious comments from Pissed Off. Excellent trolling sir . Now take a breath , learn how to spell correctly and jog on – it’s school in the morning little man.
Esso
Flight attendants need to be physically fit to evacuate an aircraft in the event of an emergency and perform their duties efficiently. Additionally, the are the customer face of the airline and need to be well groomed to represent their employer.
Requiring high standards of grooming and fitness is NOT abuse. On the other hand, excessive pressure on the flight attendants to be perfect also can be detrimental to their moral. A balancing act must be found.